7/3/2013 Listening Lounge

Opal Whiteley was a naturist, writer and mostly dreamer who lived in a fantasy world of kindness and magical creatures in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. At age six, writing with colored pencils on scraps of butcher paper and backs of envelopes, she began a secret diaryabout her time in the woods talking with the wind and her love of nature. Opal was long considered by her family as an odd and different child; but what they didn't know was that Opal was schizophrenic. The illness seemed to manifest itself in a heightened sense of awareness of the sights and sounds around her. Her heightened sensibilities and her genius for expressing herself combined to create the most fascinating diary ever written. It became wildly popular but due to it's sophistication was later condemned as a hoax. A controversy which eventually led to a further decline in her mental health.